“Brazil has become accustomed to the macabre theater of Moraes’ superpowers”

Minister Alexandre de Moraes, president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), determined prior censorship against the influencer Monark, a longtime critic of the minister and of decisions considered abusive by the highest body of Electoral Justice. This is the third censorship order directed at the influencer coming from the minister’s office.

As shown by People’s GazetteTSE servers monitored the podcast episodes monarch talks to investigate the occurrence of criticisms of the body and sent Moraes an excerpt from an episode in which the influencer criticized the authoritarian posture of Moraes and the TSE even after the end of the electoral period. In reaction, the minister ordered the blocking of all Monark’s digital channels and prohibited him from creating new profiles.

In practice, the influencer, who since 2009 acts as a producer of digital content and still earns his income from this activity, would be banned from the internet. However, the influencer’s “salvation” comes from the video platform rumble, where your podcast is hosted. Faithful to its principles that value freedom of expression, the platform did not comply with Moraes’ order to block it and kept the channel active on this link.

But retaliation against Moraes’ critic may still be far from over: by order of the minister, Monark will be heard by the Federal Police (PF) this Tuesday (20). In none of the decisions handed down, whether in the censorship order, or in ordering the PF to take testimony, did the minister specify which crimes the presenter is suspected of.

Watch the exclusive interview below. People’s Gazette with Monarch:

As a result of prior censorship, you have been muted on all social media. How do you evaluate this decision by Moraes?

monarch: In Brazil, there is no crime of opinion. But today we live here, and this has been for some time, a dictatorship of the Judiciary – this is clear to everyone who understands something about how a Democratic State of Law should work.

Alexandre de Moraes, in addition to implementing censorship, which is prohibited by the Constitution, disrespects the norms for conducting a process. He created an inquiry where he can bypass the Public Ministry and can be the victim, the accuser and the judge all at the same time.

Brazil kind of got used to this macabre theater where you have a super-powerful dictator who uses that superpower to control Congress and the Executive. And we keep accepting this while he becomes more and more authoritarian, starts to arrest people, silence journalists and the media, effectively becoming the emperor of Brazil.

As Gazeta do Povo showed exclusively, servers monitored its channel to identify criticisms of the TSE. How do you rate this State monitoring of your podcast?

monarch: Not surprising at all. Electoral Justice became the KGB of Brazil, the KGB of Moraes. He created a parallel State in the Judiciary and added functions to this little state, of police, investigation, media control, of deciding which parliamentarians will have a mandate or not. That is, he became the great moderating power of everything, which regulates everything and decides everything with fascist tactics.

What are the impacts, including financial ones, of these blocks on your channels?

monarch: The main thing is that it reduces my range, but I will also no longer make money from the adsense [recurso de publicidade que permite remunerar produtores de conteúdo] from other platforms. And in the end, I’ll have to create new channels and rebuild the audience from scratch, which is what I’ve always done, because it’s not the first time I’ve been censored, it’s the third.

But I still have a contract with rumble, which guarantees me financial security. So, even though Moraes reduces how much I earn, he can’t dry up 100% of my income.

O rumble
is a platform that was born precisely as a reaction to this growing authoritarianism in social networks around the world, where giant companies or the State, as it happens here in Brazil, want to control what the population can or cannot think and say. Their philosophy is never to censor opinions or ideas.

Moraes has now asked the PF to take his statement. Aren’t you afraid of ending up in jail, as so many other critics of the minister have been?

monarch: I’m afraid yes. But what is the solution? Keep silent? Stop speaking the truth? Lying to my audience? Omit myself? I don’t know, but with those alternatives I think maybe I’d rather be arrested.

Have you received support, especially after this latest censorship episode?

monarch: I’ve been getting a lot of support, really. There were many people who came to talk to me. And oddly enough, I had support in the mainstream media, with newspaper editorials defending me, and other vehicles had similar repercussions. That was interesting and it’s a bit surprising. Perhaps the media is trying to prevent what they have created from becoming a problem for themselves in the future.

But it is interesting to see that there is finally a reaction, there are more people saying that Moraes crossed the line. And he crossed the line a long time ago. If we accept that he crosses the line, it means that we have accepted the end of our Constitution and our democracy.